


Between the Lines

by Acexual_Attorney



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, M/M, chenle’s a sap who has heart eyes for jisung, whats better than this just kids being gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 00:43:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12829656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acexual_Attorney/pseuds/Acexual_Attorney
Summary: Chenle has a very bad habit that Jisung may or may not have picked up on





	Between the Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Hi i wanted this to be longer but i dont have the time to actually write a full-fleshed fic rn so rip lol

Chenle has a bad habit.

No, scratch that. Chenle has a horrible habit that has been taking up the majority of his school notes. He blames Renjun for making him pick it up.

In the margins of his notebook paper, messily scrawled next to calculus formulas and cell diagrams, were small doodles. Tiny little hearts with two names written inside in Chinese so the chances of anyone else finding out about his hopeless crush would lessen.

It wasn’t like he meant to do it on purpose. He got so bored in class sometimes, especially since he was a quick learner. It didn’t help that sometimes he couldn’t understand what the teacher was saying, but it’s not like his grades were suffering. He couldn’t help but daydream.

While his teacher droned on about cell division (something he already learned back in China, so he could afford to tune out), he let his mind wander. It started out simply enough, just thinking about what would be for lunch. They would probably have black noodles for kids who didn’t bring their lunch, and Chenle never brings his lunch. Black bean noodles means there’d also be two hard boiled eggs and Chenle always gives one of his eggs to Jisung.

Chenle liked hard boiled eggs, but he liked seeing Jisung’s smile more. He liked the way his lips pulled to one side when he was happy and how squishy his cheeks got when he grinned all big and wide and how his shoulders hitched when he laughed and- and that’s the problem. Chenle likes Jisung. Not just the things Jisung does but Jisung as a person and liking your best friend isn’t a fun experience, especially if you don’t know if they like boys or not.

And before Chenle knew it, he was doodling his and Jisung’s names in a little heart next to his notes and he really really hoped no one in his class could read pinyin.

He couldn’t help glancing over at Jisung just a few seats away, obviously daydreaming about something, probably dance club next Thursday or whatever his parents promised to make for dinner tonight. That, or he was about to fall asleep with the way his head was swaying. Chenle just wanted to pinch his cheeks. (He did, once upon a time, and the scrunched up face Jisung made only caused the urge to grow stronger).

It was a horrible, horrible habit that made Chenle feel all squishy inside like melted chocolate and one of these days Chenle will get back at Renjun for making him pick up the habit. Just looking at his and Jisung’s names scribbled in lopsided hearts in various fonts across the margins made his creased brow relax and now he’s been going ten minutes without listening to the teacher. Oh well, it wasn’t like they had a test tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

“What do you mean we have a test today?”

Chenle wanted to cry. He didn’t even study, oh god he was going to fail and if he failed he’d go back to China and that meant no more black bean noodles to share with Jisung and he could never get his revenge on Renjun. His entire life is going to go down the drain at the young age of 16 because of a stupid crush and Chenle should have known having actual human feelings would ruin him some day.

“You’re better off than I am,” Jisung whined, trying to pull his uniform’s sleeves over his hands in nervousness, pacing up and down the width of the hallway as he fidgeted. “At least you took notes, I was practically asleep during lecture!”

“But she wouldn’t test us over something we learned yesterday, right?” Chenle asked.

Jisung’s face lost all color as he put both hands on Chenle’s shoulders and shook them lightly. “Ge, this is Mrs. Lim we’re talking about here. She gave the class above us a pop quiz on the first day that counted for 10% of their grade. She’s out to kill us.”

“Fuck.” Was all Chenle could say before swinging his backpack over his shoulder to haphazardly rummage through it’s contents to find his notebook. Nothing said prepared like last-minute studying.

As soon as Chenle pulled the notebook from his backpack victoriously, Jisung rushed to his side to read his notes over his shoulder, mouthing the syllables to try and remember the information faster.

Chenle could barely get through his own sloppy handwriting before he heard the warning bell ring and his heart sunk all the way to the basement.

“We’re gonna die,” he whispered before rushing into the classroom so they wouldn’t be counted late, Jisung hot on his heels.

They went to their respective seats, Jisung looking a lot more pale than Chenle, and he felt a pang of sympathy go out to his dongsaeng. (It didn’t help that he wanted to do everything in his power to make Jisung’s face light up, to make a fool of himself just so Jisung would break out into an embarrassed laugh and stop looking like he was going to vomit from apprehension.)

The test wasn’t nearly as bad as Jisung was hyping it up to be, though. Chenle only felt like crying twice, and those were on bonus questions, so he’s pretty sure he escaped with at least a B+. Jisung on the other hand…

Jisung looked like a corpse. He was never the best at tests, and Mark tells Chenle when exam period comes around every year, Jisung tries to run away just so he won’t have to deal with the stress. Jaemin teases Jisung about it a lot, telling him that he has no idea how hard the upper classmen tests are, but Jisung always replies with a scrunched nose and a “Fuck off, hyung.”

Regardless, Jisung definitely wasn’t in the best state post-test. Chenle watched him out of the corner of his eye after finishing his own, and all he saw for a good five minutes was Jisung staring past the window, eyes spaced out and pencil twirling idly in his hand.

For anyone that didn’t know Jisung, this would seem normal, but Chenle knew for a fact that Jisung fidgeted when he was anxious, and he could see the younger’s leg bouncing about a mile a minute as he gnawed a hole into his own lip.

When the bell finally rung and they could get up to turn their tests in to the teacher, Chenle rushed to Jisung’s side to give him a one-armed hug. Jisung’s pale face only worsened as he looked down at Chenle. Tears were prickling at the corners of his eyes and his lower lip was starting to jut out in the beginning of a pout.

Chenle turned his head to press his lips against Jisung’s arm and mumble into his school uniform, “It’s okay, Jisungie, you can have my pudding cup for lunch to make you feel better.”

Jisung could only nod, grimace trying desperately to turn into a smile. They still had one more class before lunch, so he had to mentally ready himself for whatever hell Mr. Nam would throw their way, but hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad.

 

* * *

 

  
“Ge, can I see your notes again?” Jisung asked during lunch a few days after the test fiasco and his own almost-breakdown.

Chenle nodded and flicked the bread crumbs off his fingers so he could reach into his bookbag and pull out his notebook a second later.

“Why?” He asked as he handed it over to Jisung, pretending to ignore the fact that he didn’t wipe off his hands before grabbing at the notebook.

Jisung shrugged and pulled out his own notebook. “I kinda started daydreaming halfway through Mrs. Chu’s history lecture yesterday and I wanna know what I missed before she tries to pop quiz us.”

Chenle let out a short “Ah,” before going back to his sandwich, occasionally letting himself take peeks at Jisung.

As much as Chenle liked to tease Jisung about being cute, it was undeniably true. He still had the baby fat making his cheeks unbelievably adorable and eyes that loved to squeeze shut when he was scared. His face was too expressive, making his expressions too easy to read and the silly faces he made while reading Chenle’s notes only made his heart melt more.

“Hey, hyung-“ Chenle had to very quickly make it look like he wasn’t staring dreamily at Jisung- “what’s this character mean?” Jisung moved Chenle’s notebook over to point out a chinese character messily scrawled below his notes, exclamation marks and arrows pointing around the text for emphasis.

“Ah, it means ‘century’,” Chenle said after taking a glance at the word. “Sorry, sometimes if I don’t know a word I go back and rewrite it in mandarin so I actually know what’s going on in class.”

Jisung nodded and took back the notebook, making a small noise in understanding as he did so. “It’s okay,” he said, “I’ve actually been learning chinese recently, so I knew how to say it, I just didn’t know what it meant.”

That made a small smile break out on Chenle’s face. It was nice knowing that one of his best friends was learning his native tongue, even if he wouldn’t really use it besides with Chenle himself or maybe Renjun hyung. Chenle could even tutor Jisung a little bit, showing him new words and colloquial terms that he wouldn’t get to learn online. Jisung was obviously motivated to learn, too, since he could already read pinyin, even if he couldn’t translate it into korean just yet.

Wait, did that mean-

Shit.

Chenle’s face suddenly became a lot more red with realization.

“Hey, um, Jisungie,” Chenle coughed out around his sandwich, trying not to choke on his half-chewed bites, “does that mean you can, like- ya know- read the, um.. things I wrote on the, uh, side.”

Jisung glanced up at Chenle then back down at the notebook, cheeks just a little bit more pink than before.

“Uh- yeah, I can read them.” One more glance up at Chenle and he continued, “I think it’s kinda cute, actually. Park Chenle sounds nice and so does Zhong Jisung.”

The more he talked the redder his face got, leaking from his hot cheeks up to his ears and down his neck. His shoulders hitched up to his neck in embarrassment and Chenle wanted to scream.

And, with his brain so fried with the knowledge that Jisung knew of his bad habit and found it endearing, Chenle blurted out the only thing he could think of without making a fool of himself.

“You’re cuter,” he mumbled, slouching down in his seat so he could try and hide his burning ears.

Jisung made a very strangled noise similar to a cat whose tail got stepped on and hid his face behind Chenle’s notebook. After a few long seconds of very uncomfortable silence, Jisung slid Chenle’s notebook over to the older, opened to a new page with a single sentence written on it.

“I think you’re cute, too.”

Chenle wanted to scream again, but instead of making a scene, he just scowled at Jisung as he scribbled onto the paper, quickly sliding it back to Jisung.

His face felt unbelievably hot and he couldn’t believe they were resorting back to elementary school-esque tactics of writing notes to a crush, but he couldn’t help the lopsided heart he drew in lieu of a response. Jisung seemed to have gotten the message, just smiling up at Chenle, face a mix of happiness and incomparable embarrassment.


End file.
